Businesses with outdoor service areas, such as gasoline service stations, are taking steps today to improve the facilities and areas around them. The companies want to keep their places of business attractive for customers, keep the appearances on par with other businesses, and also make the facilities better illuminated and safer in non-daylight hours.
Service stations in particular today are improving the areas around their buildings and gasoline pumps by providing increased lighting and more aesthetic and efficient structures. In particular, illuminated and aesthetic protective canopies are being installed over the gasoline pumps. Many of these canopies have signs, lights, or lighted faces along their fascias. In addition, wall mounted signs are also being installed on the buildings or surrounding structures. Many of these signs are also lighted for increased visibility.
Where the canopy fascias and wall signs are illuminated, one of the difficulties has been to create a uniform light distribution on the outer (visible) surfaces. Typically, fluorescent bulbs (used internally) or spotlights (externally) are used and these types of illumination provide uneven or nonuniform light distribution. Also, the fluorescent lights which are often 6, 8 or 10 feet in length are difficult to change when they burn out. Changing burned out lights in conventional illuminated canopy and fascia systems is an expensive and time-consuming task, often requiring a boom truck or extension ladder. Moreover, it is often necessary to dismantle a portion of the canopy or fascia apparatus in order to change the lights.
Another difficulty with known canopy fascia systems as well as wall-mounted signs, concerns the quality and integrity of the sign panels. Weather conditions and changes in temperature sometimes create ripples and waves in the sign panels reducing their effectiveness and attractiveness. The durability of some types of sign panels has not been sufficient.
Another problem with known illuminated canopy and fascia systems, as well as wall-mounted signs, concerns the corner intersections between adjacent surfaces. Some systems have had difficulty creating a uniform light pattern at these corners. Creating a smooth wrinkle-free surface at the corners and a clean edge is also a problem with some systems.
It is an object of the present invention to provide illuminated canopy and wall-mounted systems, particularly for service stations, which are improvements over known systems. It is another object of the present invention to provide illuminated canopy and wall-mounted systems which distribute the light uniformly on and through the display faces of the systems.
It is also an object of the invention to provide illuminated canopy and wall-mounted systems in which the light sources are easy to change and maintain. It is still another object of the invention to provide illuminated canopy and wall-mounted systems which are more energy efficient than known systems today, have improved lighting and have reduced cost for use and maintenance. An additional object of the invention is to provide illuminated canopy and wall-mounted systems which have improved illumination and aesthetics at the corners of adjacent panels.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description of the invention and appended claims, when viewed in accordance with the attached drawings.